occasion that the struggle between them was clearly tremendous. Heaven,
as it is ever accustomed to give indications before most remarkable
events, foretold to them accurately both in Rome and in Macedonia all the
results that would come from it. In the City the sun at one time appeared
diminished and grew extremely small, and again showed itself now huge,
now tripled in form, and once shone forth at night. Thunderbolts
descended on many spots, and most significantly upon the altar of Jupiter
Victor; flashes darted hither and thither; notes of trumpets, clashing of
arms, and cries of camps were heard by night from the gardens of Caesar
and of Antony, located close together beside the Tiber. Moreover a dog
dragged the body of a dog to the temple of Ceres, where he dug the earth
with his paws and buried it. A child was born with hands that had ten
fingers, and a mule gave birth to a prodigy of two species. The front
part of it resembled a horse, and the rest a mule. The chariot of Minerva
while returning to the Capitol from a horse-race was dashed to pieces,
and the statue of Jupiter at Albanum sent forth blood at the very time
of the Feriae from its right shoulder and right hand. These were advance
indications to them from Heaven, and the rivers also in their land gave
out entirely or began to flow backward. And any chance deeds of men
seemed to point to the same end. During the Feriae the prefect of the city
celebrated the festival of Latiaris,[34] which neither belonged to him
nor was ordinarily observed at that time, and the plebeian aediles
offered to Ceres contests in armor in place of the horse-race. This was
what took place in Rome, where certain oracles also both before the
events and pertaining to them were recited, tending to the downfall
of the democracy. In Macedonia, to which Pangeaum and the territory
surrounding it are regarded as belonging, bees in swarms pervaded the
camp of Cassius, and in the course of its purification some one set the
garland upon his head wrong end foremost, and a boy while carrying
a Victory in some procession, such as the soldiers inaugurate, fell